Utah lands bill dead for now

Parliamentary maneuvering in the U.S. Senate has killed for the year a giant, catch-all public lands bill that had included land trades sought to help a Utah Boy Scout camp, a Bountiful shooting range, a ranch for troubled youths and Park City open space.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, the Senate will not have time to consider the bill during its brief post-election "lame duck" session this week because of maneuvering by Sen. Tim Coburn, R-Okla.

Coburn — who objects to the bill in part because portions may prevent some oil and gas exploration — had vowed to use parliamentary obstacles against it, including demanding that it be read in full and then threatened to filibuster it (or attempt to talk it to death) beyond that.

The omnibus lands bill — which combines more than 150 bills to expand wilderness areas and allow a variety of land trades — is so large that Reid estimated it would take 24 hours straight to read it on the Senate floor. Reid said the Senate does not have time for the bill now but said it will likely be one of the first items considered by the new Senate in January.

The large package contains four Utah bills that had failed to pass Congress on their own.

One would allow the Boy Scouts to trade land it had received from the federal government for use as part of its Camp Thunder Ridge to the Brian Head ski resort. The Scouts would obtain some usable, flatter land from the ski resort, while Brian Head would obtain some steeper terrain for skiing. Congressional approval is needed because of restrictions on the land.

Another would allow Park City to obtain two federally owned tracts in its boundaries known as the White Acre and Gamble Oak parcels, totalling 108.5 acres. A federal study in 1975 declared them as surplus to federal needs, and the city wants to obtain them and preserve them for open space and recreation.

Another bill would allow Bountiful to exchange 1,600 acres it now owns (but which are within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest) for federal acreage adjacent to the city, including a 220-acre parcel that is home of the Bountiful Lions Club gun range and the Davis aqueduct. City ownership would allow upgrades at the shooting range.

Finally, another bill in the package would fix what the Utah delegation says was a surveying error involving a 25-acre parcel of Bureau of Land Management land in Garfield County.

The parcel is part of the Turnabout Ranch, which hosts a rehabilitation program for troubled youths. Utah members of Congress say an erroneous survey for a land exchange in 1999 put that tract into the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. The bill would adjust the monument boundary and allow the ranch to purchase the land to correct property trespass questions.

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